


Blonde Pigtails and a Strawberry Headband

by bendycello



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Family Feels, Gen, Hurt, Hurt Number Five | The Boy, Hurt/Comfort, I need coffee, Let Number Five | The Boy Say Fuck, Major Character Injury, No Incest, Number Five | The Boy Gets A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, Number Five | The Boy has PTSD, Number Five | The Boy-centric, Post-Apocalypse, School Shootings, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, That is all, also five is baby, an excuse to write five as a high schooler, five needs coffee, i change fandoms like a girl changes clothes, imagine actually needing that as a tag omg, it is 2:20 am, no beta we die like ben, no luther bashing bc season two luther is a gift from the heavens, none of that emo ben >:(, thats not how the lyrics go oops, too soon :(, yall nasty for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26119201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendycello/pseuds/bendycello
Summary: After the Hargreeves return from 1963, a few things happen. First, they're kicked out of their house by dear old Reggie. Second, they all move into a house downtown together.Third, Five gets enrolled in high school. Not by his own free will, of course.It goes downhill from there.Or, the Hargreeves learn the hard way that life can be dangerous even without the apocalypse as a constant looming threat.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Diego Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 106
Kudos: 765





	1. Chapter One

Five had ripped out a man’s throat before. With his teeth. His canines had made easy work of the flesh, and with brute strength he exposed and crushed the trachea. The target died from asphyxiation a few minutes later. He vividly remembered the metallic taste of the blood, and the feeling of it coating his clothes and smearing across his face. His arms had both been broken and he had no other means of completing the mission discreetly, so it had been a necessary evil. The blood hadn’t bothered him. He’d long been desensitized to gore thanks to his father, and he’d carried out the brutal murder of the innocent mailman with hardly a batted eye. It was his job, and it had been for five years. 

He was a murderer. He was cold blooded. He’d always be this way, no matter how much Allison fretted over his caffeine addiction or Kluas ruffled his hair like he was a fucking kid.

Unfortunately, no matter how much Five had seen and gone through, he was absolutely disgusted by the fourteen year-old asshole two seats over picking his snotty little nose. 

_ Really _ , he was in high school. By no means had Five been exposed to the normal maturation process of children in the real world, but he was pretty sure that the nose picking stage ended a _ long _ time ago. 

Five tried to ignore him and focus on the cluttered math equations flowing across the sheet of paper on his desk. He’d finished the stupid history quiz in a matter of minutes. Mr. Carpin had raised an eyebrow at him when he turned it in almost immediately, but didn’t say anything. It was a usual occurrence for Five at this point. Besides, he’d been there to assassinate Rasputin himself. He knew all about it already. 

As Five scribbled out a whole column of equations, he wondered for what felt like the millionth time how he allowed this to happen. Fucking  _ high school. _ As if looking like a fucking prepubescent little rat wasn’t enough, Diego had helpfully pointed out the fact that as a legal resident of a house now owned by the five “adult” Hargreeves, a social worker was bound to swoop by at any moment, snatch Five up like the poor, neglected, pure child he was and deposit him into a foster home, unless they enrolled him in school. Klaus helped make him a fake I.D. where he was  _ actually  _ thirteen and Diego created home school records out of thin air. After a lot of emails and a lot of testing, the district allowed him to hop up a grade due to his “advanced home school education” (advanced his  _ ass _ , he was smarter than any physics professor at M.I.T., let alone a bunch of fucking high school teachers) so instead of spending eight torturous hours of his day with thirteen-year-olds, he was stuck with a bunch of fourteen-year-olds, which was  _ so _ much better. Klaus, of course, had thought the situation was absolutely hilarious, and filled his phone with pictures of Five’s “first day of school.” 

The Hargreeves were currently in a bit of a sticky situation, and Klaus had just really lost Ben for good, so Five figured the least he could do was let his brother have a bit of fun. After Reginald had kicked them out of their own house, which was apparently the Sparrow Academy now, they had managed to rent a small building downtown and crammed all six of themselves into it. They didn’t have anywhere else to go. Claire didn’t even exist in this timeline, and they couldn’t find out anything on what had happened to them after Reginald, so embarrassed by their actions in 1963, proceeded to adopt a completely different group of powered children. 

Except Ben.

Yeah, that had kind of been a trip for everyone. Seeing the long-dead brother and realizing he wants nothing to do with you? 

Five wasn’t going to lie, it hurt. 

The bell rang and he gathered his materials and shoved them into his backpack. His dignity also hurt. This fucking sucked. They put him in precalc, and when it became clear he far and away surpassed everyone, including the teacher, they pushed him up to calculus. He figured it would take one day for them to bump him up to multivariable calculus, and then hopefully they’d let him take  _ real _ math, but the counselors said that as a young boy, taking such an advanced class which such mature students could be emotionally damaging and stunt his mental growth, or whatever. Fucking  _ bullshit.  _

Walking through the hallway between classes may have been the most humiliated he’d ever felt in his entire life, except for maybe when his Spanish teacher made him introduce himself in front of the entire class. He was short, even for a thirteen year-old (well, a fifty-eight-year-old in a thirteen-year-old’s body, but clearly at this point the details didn’t fucking matter) so he was dwarfed by anyone and everyone. Even the fucking girls towered above him.

He shoved his way through the masses, just trying to get to class without being noticed. He’d attracted far too much unwanted attention the past two weeks he’d been a high school student. Word traveled fast among teenagers with nothing better in life to do than gossip, so by now the entire school had heard about the home schooled genius baby. On his second day he’d been cornered in the bathroom by some freshmen who offered him Adderall in exchange for him writing their English papers. He’d said no, obviously, and then they’d called him a teacher's pet, so Five had gone and stabbed his finger into the kid’s eye and he was getting ready to roundhouse the other one, but a janitor came in and broke up the fight. The three of them were sent to the principal's office and they called Allison, his ‘mom,’ and then at home Allison had lectured him like he was an  _ actual _ child about how he needed to be careful and not draw attention to himself because of the precarious position they were in. 

And Five had to deal with three more years of this bullshit. 

He finally made it to the gymnasium and escaped the overcrowded hallways. In the apocalypse, he’d hated going to schools, but it was necessary. They were loaded with vending machines, materials like paper and pencils, and if he could find the nurse’s room there was always first aid supplies. The downside was the bodies. Every step he took, he was confronted with the glazed eyes and bloodied hands of children.  _ Children _ . It was bad enough when he was looting a middle school or high school, but once he stumbled across an elementary school and he’d sat and cried for hours after tripping over a little girl with blonde pigtails and a headband decorated with strawberries. 

He still saw her corpse in his nightmares. 

Five shrugged off his shirt and pulled on the stupid gym uniform he was required to wear. The sounds of lockers slamming and the stench of teen boys that didn’t know they were supposed to use deodorant yet filled the room. Five hated everything about being a high schooler, but he hated gym the most. It was basically a testosterone competition between twiggy looking boys that had never even gotten a fist to the face, and all Five could think of was how quickly he could take out these stupid kids. It reminded him a bit of Luther and Diego. At least they used deodorant. 

He finished changing and headed out of the locker room, not wanting to spend a second longer in that toxic air than he needed to. As he crossed his arms to hide the umbrella tattoo on his forearm (getting that noticed was the last thing he needed) and leaned against the wall, a tall lanky kid made his way over to stand next to him.

“Hey, Five,” the kid said.

“Hey, Max.” Max never asked Five questions about why he enrolled in April, or why he’d been home schooled all his life, or why he dressed like an adult like everyone else did, which was why Five could stand his presence. He was also pretty smart and, honestly, could be pretty funny. He was the closest thing Five had to a friend in this God-awful hellhole, so Five ate lunch with him and helped with his homework sometimes and managed to coexist with him like a normal person. 

Because that’s what this whole thing was about, right? Being a normal person.

Students finished filtering out of the locker rooms, and Coach Drake took the boys’ attendance while Coach Allen took care of the girls’. Five still didn’t understand why they insisted on being called “coach.” They really didn’t do anything besides tell off the boys for shoving some unfortunate kid into a wall, or giving the girls some half-assed explanation on how to throw a football because apparently, this was a fact that was ingrained into the Y chromosome, so boys did not need the rundown. 

Well. Five could kill a man in over one hundred fifty ways, but he couldn’t throw a football. 

There hadn’t been any footballs in the apocalypse, he told himself, but it didn’t make it any less embarrassing. 

Coach Drake began to ramble about the ins and outs of holding a floor hockey stick, and Five’s mind wandered to the mission he had to 2004, when he had to slice someone’s carotid artery with an ice skate. 

Suddenly, Max was pushing a long stick into his hands and handing him some filthy goggles to protect his eyes, and the floor hockey game began. Just like that, for the million and first time, Five wondered how he allowed this to happen. He could barely see out of the smudged goggles which immediately triggered his fight or flight response. Sight was crucial as a sniper. If he didn’t have a clear line of sight, he could kill the wrong person and that could set off a whole fluctuation of fuck ups in the timeline. If he couldn’t see in a hostile environment, he was easy to take advantage of. To injure. 

To kill. 

Of course, there was no danger in a floor hockey game with a bunch of egotistical, dumbass mini Luthers that smelled bad. For him, at least. He could easily swing the hockey stick hard enough to temporarily incapacitate someone at least twice his size and then snap their neck, or use the strap of his goggles to strangle someone to death…

Someone passed the rubber ball to him and his murderous train of thought was interrupted. The hockey stick was far too tall for him to be anything but extremely awkward with, so he just kicked the ball with his foot. It went right to the other team, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Hargreeves!” Coach Drake called from across the court. “Use the stick, kid! And Harry’s on the other team!” 

“Sorry, thought this was soccer,” Five replied, instead of marching right up to the  _ younger _ man to beat the shit out of him for calling him a kid. God, he hated this stupid school. 

Thankfully, his team got the message and no one passed to him for the remainder of the class, leaving him free to run through calculations in his head. Ever since he and his family returned from 1963, he’d been feverishly mapping out probability map after probability map, trying to figure out how much they’d changed, how much he could fix, and how likely another apocalypse was. Schoolwork was getting in the way, but luckily it was laughably easy and he managed to finish it with enough time to spend the rest of the night (and morning, but his siblings didn’t need to know about that) working out every possible detail of the future. 

The bell cut through his thoughts and he headed back to the locker room to change out of the stupid, gross uniform, ignoring the full on wrestling match that the hockey game had evolved into. He only had two more classes, calculus and an art class (he had desperately tried to get out of that one, but Vanya said it would be a good class to “calm his nerves” and make him “more relaxed and less hell-bent on murder.” She sounded like the fucking school counselors), and then he could go home for some peace and quiet. Well, not peace and quiet, but anything was better than being trapped in a miserable building packed with two thousand kids at once, all of whom were undergoing an identity crisis spurred on by hormones. 

His calc class was filled with mostly seniors and juniors, plus him and one sophomore. It was his most challenging class (which wasn’t saying much) and he was relieved to be surrounded by seniors and juniors who took the class seriously, as opposed to that freshman who was incessantly picking his nose earlier. The class passed quickly, with the teacher rambling on about Taylor polynomials and error bounds, and the upcoming AP exam in May. Five tuned in and out; he had taught himself the entire BC curriculum when he was eleven. It had been part of his studies for Reginald. 

Max met up with him in the hallway as they headed to art, another class they shared. 

“Ready to discover our deepest desires by expressing ourselves through painting?” He asked. 

Five gagged. “Never say that again.” 

“You’re just jealous that you can’t get in touch with your inner emotions because you’re a cold hearted little asshole.”

“Say what you want, string bean. At least my body is proportional.”

“Proportional is all well and good until you need my help getting your math book from the top shelf in the library.” 

“You will never be able to find a pair of pants that fit you.”

“You will never be able to throw a football.”

Five frowned as they entered the art room and sat down. “Whoa. Uncalled for, man.” 

Max shrugged and stretched his long legs until they poked out into the aisle and knocked into the chair in front of him. 

“String bean,” Five hissed as the teacher began giving the instructions for the day. 

Five was not an artist by any means. Reginald had deemed art useless for their purposes, and Five hadn’t been into it much anyway, far more focused on his math and physics textbooks. Luckily for him, no one else in his class had much luck with paintbrushes either, aside from one girl who had already illustrated two children’s books. Five only knew this because he had asked her if she’d considered it, and he only asked because she had blonde pigtails and her backpack had strawberries on it. 

Fuck him for being a fucking softie. 

After ten minutes of slapping paint on a canvas and calling it participation, he got up and headed to the bathroom. High school bathrooms were fucking disgusting, by the way. No one in this school could fucking aim, apparently, and the sinks were flecked with who knows what and the stall walls looked like a newspaper. Well, they would, at least, if newspapers had articles titled “Eric is gay” and “Fuck Marrion High School” and “Eat shit, cocksucker.” Five had to talk to Allison about rumoring the higher ups to do something about this. He wasn’t going to spend the next three years of his life taking a piss in an actual dump. 

He finished washing his hands and slowly made his way back to class. He felt a bit bad about leaving Max to suffer his way through the class alone, but he figured he’d be fine for a couple extra minutes. Five took the scenic route, strolling through the hallways and glancing through windows to see kids bent over their desks.

He despised this building and these people with every ounce of his being, but it was a nice reminder that he’d succeeded.

He’d stopped the apocalypse. 

He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding and tried to force himself to relax. Thinking of how close humanity had come to being destroyed always freaked him out a bit, and the last thing he needed was to have a panic attack in the middle of the hallway. He tensed every muscle and then let them relax, a technique Luther had taught him which helped deal with anxiety. He was safe, the world was fine, his  _ family _ was fine, and spending a measly three years of his life in a public high school wasn’t  _ that _ bad. He’d survived forty years in the apocalypse. 

Everything was fine.

The next few seconds passed in a blur, and Five decided that he would never let his guard down again. There was no such thing as safe, no such thing as fine. 

There was a deafening bang and he was on the floor. The dizzying fluorescent lights above him seared his eyes with overstimulating light and pain scorched through his shoulder, a horrifying sense of dread settling in his stomach as retreating footsteps echoed through the hallway.


	2. Chapter Two

Pain was a constant in the apocalypse. Not a day went by without Five suffering some sort of ache, whether it was as serious as being pinned by a crumbling wall or more minor, like the sharp hunger pangs that stabbed at his stomach when he went a week without eating. He became used to laying defeatedly on his back, staring at the sky that was no longer blue but rather blocked out by a film of dark ash, wondering how many more torturous days he was damned to spend in such a purgatory. 

As he blinked dazedly at the fluorescent lights, he vaguely wondered if he had ever really left the apocalypse at all. This was so familiar, but his brain felt as clogged as the ashy sky and he couldn’t quite remember why. 

Another shot rang out followed by a scream, and reality hit Five like a train. 

He bolted upright only to flop back down with a pathetic whimper as fire raged from his chest to his finger tips.

Getting shot  _ sucked _ . He’d been shot plenty of times as a commission agent, and he never got used to the pain. He clamped his hand over the wound and pressed down hard, clenching his teeth as he tried to focus.

There was a shooter in the school.

There was a  _ shooter _ in the stupid fucking  _ school. _

_ You need to get up _ , Delores’s voice told him. She was always there when he needed her. Shit, did he miss her. 

Five sat up gradually this time. Someone was talking over the speakers. The school was going into lockdown. 

Okay. He could deal with this. The last thing he had been expecting during his bathroom break was to get shot, but at least it spiced up art class a bit. He could fix this. He was a trained assassin and he’d been hurt far worse than this. His hand was only shaking from shock, that’s all. Not the fact that he was supposed to be safe now, not the fact that his guard had been so lowered that if he’d been hit a few inches to the right he’d be dead.

Five fumbled for his phone. Allison had insisted he get one because the Hargreeves were lacking in communication enough as it was. Klaus had made fun of him relentlessly when he tried to type with his pointer finger instead of his thumb, but it wasn’t  _ his _ fault the letters were so goddamn small. 

He briefly wondered if he should just deal with this on his own, but decided against it. He was already hurt and not looking forward to another lecture about hiding injuries, and it wasn’t just his life at stake. There were two thousand other kids in this school. Max’s life was at stake. The girl with the blonde pigtails and the strawberry backpack’s life was at stake. He couldn’t afford to fuck up. 

After sending a quick text to Diego, the sibling he deemed most capable of dealing with this situation given his history at the police academy, Five hauled himself to his feet and began to head in the direction of the shooter. Well, the direction he thought the shooter went. He’d just been shot, forgive him for being a bit disoriented. 

Two more shots echoed through the halls and Five’s stomach clenched. He needed to hurry. Blue light fizzed around his fits as he ripped a whole in space and stepped through the portal, popping into existence two halls over just in time to see someone vanish around the corner. He kept his right hand clamped against his shoulder and took off at a sprint. It was just one kid. He could take him. 

Each step jarred his shoulder and he was already sweating. The spacial jump used more energy than he’d expected. He’d deal with it. He’d been through worse. 

Another shot. 

Five picked up the pace. 

He rounded the corner and nearly tripped over the body of a staff member. It was a clean shot to the forehead. Maybe this kid was better than Five thought. He kept running, shoving the image of the dead woman to the deepest crevice of his mind with the rest of them. 

He turned the next corner and immediately dropped to the floor as two bullets whizzed over him, right where he had been standing milliseconds prior. He rolled and then jumped, appearing on the other side of the shooter. He was short but stocky and had a bit of a mustache going, the type of facial hair kids had in the awkward stage between childhood and adulthood. Five recognized him. He was in his calculus class. 

The kid’s eyes widened slightly, the same reaction Five usually got when he teleported. The shock was quickly replaced with a mask of calm, but the gun wavered slightly. No one else would have noticed, but Five wasn’t no one.

“Put down the gun,” he said. Normally he would have already gone for the kill, but this was a kid, not a mission.

The kid’s nose wrinkled as a sneer danced across his face. “Or what, faggot? You gonna  _ tell _ on me?”

“Your hand’s shaking. You clearly don’t want to do this. So put down the gun before I make you regret it.”

“Make me regret it?” He laughed. “How do you plan on doing that? You’re the one being held at gunpoint.”

Five clenched his fists. “You don’t know how many people I’ve murdered. I could take your ass down in my _ sleep _ . I’ve gone lengths to survive that your pea brain couldn’t even  _ begin _ to comprehend. You  _ don’t  _ want to threaten me, so put down the fucking gun so we can get this over with, so I don’t have to rip your head off your miserable little neck and shove it up your  _ ass _ .”

Five noticed the kid’s eyes fixate on a point just above his shoulder and he realized what was happening a second too late. He jumped away from the hallway and landed in a storage closet, the deafening bang ringing in his ears as he toppled over into a bin full of brooms and a new pain lanced across his side.

Fuck.

There were two of them. 

_ You’re better than this _ , Delores scolded.  _ Never assume there’s only one threat. _

“I know, I know,” Five muttered. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket but he didn’t pull it out. His text had been clear enough, Diego didn’t need him to spell it out for him like he was a fucking baby. 

He glanced down and peeled his shirt away from his side. It was only a graze, thank fuck, but it still hurt and it was painful evidence of his failure to properly assess the situation. 

Of  _ course _ there were two of them.

He pressed his ear to the door and for more gunshots or voices, but heard nothing. He either jumped too far away to hear them, or they’d already moved on. 

One way to find out. 

He opened the door a crack and scanned the hallway. A different hallway, so he’d jumped farther than he’d initially thought. It’d be nice to have a weapon, he thought as he edged out of the storage closet. His mind briefly wandered to the gym. He was pretty sure they had baseball bats down there, but he dismissed the idea as quickly as he thought of it. The bullet wounds left him too drained to jump there and back, and he certainly didn’t have enough time to get there on foot. 

All he had was himself. 

He stalked the hallways silently, light on his feet from years of training and experience, a fierce cat stalking a puny mouse. Well, two mice actually. Armed with guns. Oh, and the cat was bleeding out. Alright, not the best analogy he’d come up with. 

There were no more shots, and while Five was glad that no one was actively dying, it was a bit of a pain in the ass because he had absolutely no idea where these assholes went. He could wander the halls forever and not find them. They might be following  _ him _ , for all he knew. He certainly wasn’t at the top of his game. 

Blood began to drip from his shirt,  _ tap tap tapping _ on the floor as he hurried along and leaving a grim trail of crimson in his wake. Based on the warm substance streaming down his back, the bullet had gone all the way through his shoulder and nothing was left to staunch the blood flow. The black spots swimming around the edges of his vision indicated that he very well might bleed out if he couldn’t find the two shooters soon.

He finally heard footsteps approaching from the intersection in the hallway ahead of him. He took a deep breath, willing his plan to work, and jumped through space as the figure turned into his line of sight. 

Five landed a bit clumsily on his back, beginning to slide off before catching himself on the neck. He heaved himself up into a more secure position as the kid began to claw at him and tried to grab the gun from his hand. The kid had a tight grip, and a spray of bullets littered the ceiling as the two grappled for control. Five finally ripped the handgun from his grasp but before he could end the little fucker, he was slammed into a wall. Agony tore through his shoulder and he released his hold with a cry of pain. 

Five was vaguely aware of a hand reaching out, coming closer and closer, so he chucked the gun for all he was worth. It clattered to the ground in the distance. 

The kid took off in the direction of the gun, giving Five a few moments to stagger to his feet and regain his breath. By the time he managed to look up, the kid already had the gun pointed at his face. Five clenched his fists and  _ yanked _ and-

Nothing.

He was out of fuel. 

As if in slow motion, the kid’s trigger finger twitched and a frighteningly clear image of Reginald’s disappointed face flashed through Five’s brain. He squeezed his eyes shut, really not wanting his last conscious thought to be of his father’s disenchantment with his ability to fuck everything up, and also not wanting to die in a fucking high school, after everything he’d been through. Pathetic. 

There was a click and then deafening silence, and Five opened his eyes to realize that he was not, in fact, a splatter of blood on the floor. 

The kid’s face crumpled with rage and he pulled the trigger again. 

Nothing.

Five grinned and lunged. 

His mobility wasn’t great due to the big ass hole in his shoulder, but he was a trained assassin and this child was very much not. He got in a few quick punches before the kid caught on and actually started to fight back. He was strong and had a lot of power, Five decided after taking a fierce right hook that made the world swirl around its axis and almost knocked him to the floor.

Almost. 

He ducked beneath the next swing and landed a couple punches to the stomach before the kid swiped at him again. 

Five danced around him, adrenaline pumping through his veins, the agony of his shoulder long forgotten. He was in his element. This was what he was made for. 

Unfortunately, the kid still had the handgun and finally realized it didn’t need bullets to be a weapon. He kicked at Five’s knee and his leg crumpled, temporarily knocking him off balance. The gun came down on his temple,  _ hard _ , and oh, was the world  _ spinning _ .

Five landed flat on his stomach with his eyes squeezed shut. There was a foot on his bad shoulder, pressing down, and he  _ screamed _ . 

Blue light flickered uselessly around his fists and sputtered out as he tried to jump, tried to do anything to get away from the all consuming pain that threatened to blink him out of consciousness. With no options left, Five turned his head to the side and bit down on what he thought was an ankle. The pressure eased slightly but was still there so he clenched down harder,  _ harder _ , until a salty fluid leaked into his mouth and the foot vanished, only to reappear seconds later in the form of a swift kick to his face.

Something crunched. Maybe Five’s nose, maybe his eye socket, who knew. He rolled onto his back, just in time to get yanked up by the collar of his shirt and shaken like a doll. Five reached out desperately, slapping around the kid’s face while his hands were occupied with shaking the ever loving  _ shit _ out of him, and managed to get a hold of his jaw. He squeezed as hard as he could until he felt a crack. The hands released his collar and he fell to the floor. 

The kid was howling in pain as Five got to his knees. Yeah. Broken jaws hurt. 

It was time to finish this kid. Five slowly made his way onto unsteady feet, his head spinning from shock or a concussion or whiplash or blood loss or… or who knows what, it didn’t matter, he had to kill this kid before anyone else got hurt. He staggered forward, praying he didn’t fall on his face, and shoved the kid as hard as he could. 

The kid stumbled and went down. Five leaned over him, placed his hands on either side of his head and yanked. The neck snapped cleanly and he crumpled to the ground, silent. 

Five leaned against the wall and sighed. One more to go. He hoped Diego would get his ass here soon. His hands were trembling and he was getting lightheaded enough that he wasn’t sure he could do the rest of this by himself.

_ You have to find the other one _ , Delores urged.  _ The one from your calculus class _ .

“Obviously,” Five said, heaving himself from the wall and beginning the trek through the hallways.

Every few steps and a wave of intense dizziness would force him to stop and brace himself against the wall. His entire shirt was drenched in blood. His head felt stuffy and it was getting difficult to pursue a train of thought. This was not good, but Delores's words of encouragement urged him on. 

Three bangs. They were distant. Too distant. On another floor. Even farther off in the distance Five heard what sounded like sirens. At least  _ somebody _ had finally decided to show up and help. He made it to the stairs and began the slow climb, clinging to the railing for dear life. It didn’t take long for the metal to become slippery with a mixture of sweat and blood, and he struggled to hold on. 

Halfway up the staircase Five stumbled and fell heavily on his knees, heaving in one breath after the other. He was completely spent, but he couldn’t afford to just sit here and pass out. Too many lives depended on it. 

The bell signaling the end of the day eerily filled the empty halls. Five shut his eyes briefly and tried to pull himself together. He had to get  _ up _ . Shaky legs gradually took his weight and pushed forward. 

Ten more steps.

Now five. 

Now three.

He made it to the stop of the staircase and let out a heavy sigh of relief before staggering down the hall. He heard yelling one hall over, maybe two. The yelling was followed by desperate pleading, a type of pleading that was all too familiar to Five. 

It was the sound targets made right before he killed them.

His stomach flipped violently and he leaned over, hands on his knees as he emptied his lunch onto the tile floor. He gagged for a few awful, painful moments after everything was out before straightening and continuing forward. Every inch of his body screamed at him to stop, to lay down, to curl up into a ball and forget about the looming responsibility that weighed so heavily on his shoulders, but he grit his teeth and told his body to shut the fuck up.

There was a commotion coming from what sounded like downstairs. A door banging open, a stampede of footsteps. Maybe the cops were here, but Five doubted they’d find the remaining shooter in time. 

He turned the corner and braced himself.

The kid from Five’s calculus class was standing in front of a classroom, which was being blocked off by a middle aged woman, probably a teacher.

“I said get out of the way,” the kid growled. “Don’t make me kill you too.”

“Hey, asshole!” Five shouted with all the energy he could muster. He sounded a bit like a strangled duck, but the kid turned his attention to him rather than the teacher, which was a win. “I told you to put the fucking gun down. But you didn’t, and I gotta say, your friend’s neck snapped like  _ that _ .” Five snapped for emphasis, and he could see the shooter’s expression shift from anger, to grief, to absolute, all consuming rage.

“You’re bluffing,” he said. “He has a gun. There’s no way.”

Five tilted his head. “I’ll snap yours, too, and then you can find out for sure.” 

The shooter lunged, and although Five was a complete mess, he managed to sidestep out of the way and stick out his foot. The kid sprawled across the hard floor but got up quickly, already charging once again. 

In his fury, he seemed to forget all about the very useful, very deadly handgun he still had, and also lost all his precision. He fought with pure brute strength and no strategy. Five kneed him in the groin and swung up at his nose as he doubled over. He reached out to snap his neck, but the shooter stood up suddenly and tossed Five over his back and onto the ground like he weighed nothing. 

Five’s head cracked against the ground and he lay there in a daze. If he hadn’t been concussed before, he certainly was now. He was vaguely aware that he was being pulled up and slammed into a wall, and then there were hands at his throat, pinning him there.

He couldn’t breathe.

He couldn’t  _ breathe _ .

He clawed viciously at the strong hands squeezing his throat, felt the skin tearing beneath his nails, but the pressure didn’t let up. 

_ Jump! _ Delores yelled,  _ why aren’t you jumping? _

Five  _ couldn’t _ jump, he was exhausted, but all he could get out was an awful choking noise. 

He tried to kick out, but the shooter was pressed against him so that he couldn't move. A static noise flooded his ears, and the black spots at the edge of his vision swelled larger and larger until he couldn’t see anything. An image of a little girl, lying on the ground, eyes glazed over, her blonde pigtails matted and her strawberry headband bloodied forced itself into his mind. It was the image of failure, he’d failed everyone. It hurt, oh God, it  _ hurt _ , his chest was about to explode, he was going to  _ die- _

The pressure released and there was a thud off to his left (maybe his right? He wasn’t even sure which way was up at this point) and he felt something cool and hard against his cheek. The black spots gradually receded, and Five found himself staring blankly down the hallway where he’d fallen. He gasped, took in one breath, then another, his throat burning and then he was coughing, coughing, coughing, and he couldn’t get air again, the black spots were coming back, he was choking on his own swelling throat-

“-ive? Five, listen to me, okay? Just breathe. Easy breaths, okay? Here, here match my breathing. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Someone was talking. The voice was familiar. His hand was on someone’s chest, and he desperately tried to match their breathing pattern before he suffocated. The coughing subsided, though he still wheezed as he inhaled and his throat throbbed in sync with the pounding of his heart.

“That’s it, buddy. Nice and easy.”

Five blinked and tried to turn his head. A figure swam into view above him. 

“Diego?” Five coughed out. Fuck, was his voice absolutely wrecked. He coughed again, a sharp pain stabbing at his throat.

Okay, no talking then.

“It’s me, buddy. Got your text. This is a real shitshow, isn’t it?”

Five couldn’t even bring himself to be pissed off with the stupid nickname, he was just so relieved that Diego made it. But if Diego was here with him, who was taking care of…

Five planted his elbows on the floor and tried to force himself into a sitting position, but Diego’s firm hand on his good shoulder kept him down.

“Luther’s taking care of him. Nothing to worry about. The cops are here, too. And an ambulance, which, uh, you obviously need. Hopefully we can get out of here before the cops get on my ass about being here.”

With each blink, Five’s eyelids got heavier and heavier. A film of gray was slowly washing over his vision. He was going to pass out soon. A sudden, sharp ache forced him back to reality. He groaned and batted at the hand pressing against his shoulder, but Diego didn’t budge.

“Sorry, Five. Can’t have you bleeding out on me. Try to stay awake, okay?”

Someone else was leaning over him too, now. Given that the figure wasn’t actively trying to kill him, Five figured that it was Luther, and the shooter was taken care of.

“He doesn’t look too good.” Yeah, definitely Luther.

“I look better than you,” Five managed to force out, but it didn’t really help the situation. His words slurred together and his voice cracked, and Luther’s blurry face creased with concern. His entire body pulsed with pain, but he held on to the last threads of his consciousness. Luther would freak out, and no one wanted to deal with a freaked out Luther. 

“The paramedics should be here soon. Just hang on a bit longer.”

“I’m fine. Promise.” Five definitely wasn’t fine and that was probably pretty clear at this point, but it was basically his catchphrase when everything went to shit. 

“Yeah. And Dad loved us,” Diego said.

Luther shifted uncomfortably. “Uh, Diego? Not helping.” 

Five’s vision swirled around dizzyingly for a few moments before graying out again. Luther and Diego’s bickering sounded like it was coming from far, far away. Something was tapping his cheek. Someone was calling his name. At least, that was what it sounded a bit like. He couldn’t make out much of anything at this point. 

He didn’t even hurt anymore.

Was that bad?

As he distantly felt his body being lifted from the ground, he realized he didn’t know.

The strings of his consciousness were cut, and he drifted off into a void of gray. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's chapter two! Get ready for a chapter packed with fluff and lot's of sibling conversations because I'm a sucker for that shit. Thnk you so much for all the kind comments and kudos! Next chapter up soon! :)


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long, I procrastinated writing it by binging Broadchurch, which is an incredible show on Netflix that I highly recommend if you like murder mysteries and David Tennant. Anyway, get ready for some fluff!!!

Voices swarmed around him, swaddling him in a cocoon, washing over him like waves, and yet Five couldn’t make out any words. Reality and comprehension swam just beyond his reach, and the familiar voices seemed to taunt him as he remained helpless in a void of gray.

Some of the voices were familiar, but he couldn’t connect them to a name quite yet.

_ “Hang in there a bit longer, old man.” _

_ “Should his breathing sound like that?” _

_ “What’s the ETA?” _

Some voices were less familiar, and made little sense to his muddled brain.

_ “BP’s dropping.” _

_ “Get him oxygen, stat.” _

The voices were accompanied by a deep vibration and a piercing wail that made his head ache. What was going on?

Moments later, the vibration ceased and the wail cut off and Five was left in deafening silence. 

  
  


* * *

It was bright. Too bright. The light sent a stabbing pain into his eyes, which coursed through his head and jaw and seemed to spread to every inch of his body. He heard a moan, and realized with a jolt that it was him. 

“It’s okay, kid,” someone said off to his right. “You’re gonna be alright.”

  
  


* * *

Heat. Burning, scorching heat. The air was dry and the hot wind whipped against his face. He smelled smoke, and coughed as something thick clogged his lungs. Five opened his eyes and unbridled terror coursed through his veins.

Laid out in front of him was miles and miles of burning rubble. Ash floated from the gray sky and coated the ground with a dark dusting of apocalyptic snow. In front of him lay a little girl, her empty eyes fixed on a nonexistent point in the distance. She had blonde pigtails and a strawberry headband. 

Five stood and stared.

No.

_ No. _

He’d gotten  _ out.  _ This couldn’t be real, he thought, taking a step forward and staggering to the ground in despair, his knees crashing into rubble with a sharp pain. 

It was supposed to be  _ over.  _

Something wet slid down his cheek and he hastily wiped it away. He was fifty-fucking-eight years old, he wasn’t going to start blubbering like a baby because of a stupid hallucination. 

Five sat and waited.

And waited.

Panic churned deep in his stomach with each passing minute and his chest grew tighter and tighter until he was wheezing in desperate, painful breaths. 

His hallucinations never lasted this long.

More tears came, and this time Five didn’t try to stop them. 

The old man had told him time travel messed with the mind. Was that really what all those years had been? Was the real hallucination saving his family?

A sob tore its way from somewhere deep inside Five, a hopeless, forlorn little noise. He dropped his head into his hand and began to shake as more sobs wracked his body. He was alone. Again.

And his family was dead. 

_ “How’s he doing?” _

The voice was achingly familiar, but Five refused to give himself hope over yet another illusion. 

_ “About the same. The surgery was pretty hard on him, but he’s out of the woods.” _

Five lifted his head from his hands and blinked away tears. The burning landscape before him was fading rapidly before his eyes. There was a weight in his right hand. He looked down in confusion, but it was empty. 

_ “Little shit wasn’t gonna leave us behind that easily.” _

Someone laughed, a cheerful but tired sound, so out of place in the desolation of the apocalypse. Five blinked and everything disappeared into darkness. 

He felt heavy. So, incredibly heavy. His limbs felt like they were made of lead, and his fingertips were numb. He slowly became aware of the sting in his throat when he swallowed and a dull ache under his temples. There was a rhythmic beeping off to one side that he gradually became more aware of as his consciousness returned. 

Five tried to open his eyes, but it was in vain. They felt glued shut. He heard a door open.

_ “Could I interest you fine ladies and gentlemen in some coffee?” _

_ “Klaus, I could kiss you.” _

_ “If I had a dime for every time I heard that, sweetheart.” _

_ “A little quieter, guys? You’ll wake him.” _

The voices sounded slightly distorted and very, very far away, but a spark of warmth and relief burned softly in Five’s chest. 

His siblings were okay. He could’ve laid there (wherever he was) all day and listened to the beautiful sound of them bickering, but their voices dimmed as unconsciousness dragged him away from the surface once again. 

  
  


* * *

Five didn’t feel much better the next time he became aware of himself. He could feel his fingers this time, but a steady pain had taken up residence in his shoulder, and his headache had yet to disappear. He was laying down, flat on his back on a soft material, probably a bed. The incessant beeping noise was still present, and Five pried his heavy eyelids open just so he could find the culprit and smash it to pieces. 

His eyes opened this time (well, eye...his left eye was swollen shut) but was immediately assaulted by a blinding light that did not help his headache at all. Blinking rapidly, his eye grew used to the light and Five found himself staring at a very white ceiling. His body was still too heavy and fuzzy to move at all, so he flicked his gaze from side to side as he took in his surroundings. He was laying in a bed, Vanya fast asleep in a chair to his left, Luther and Allison to his right. Luther was intently reading some magazine, (Five’s eyesight was too blurry to make out what) and Allison was tapping away at her phone. He remembered the weight he felt in his hand, and realized she was holding it. Normally, he’d snarl and rip his hand away, but he was too exhausted to even lift a finger. 

There was an IV in the back of his hand, the tube disappearing somewhere off behind him, and his left arm was draped over his midsection and held steady in a sling. He swallowed painfully, wondering what had happened. It had been bad, he knew that, but he couldn’t quite put a finger on what it was. His head was buzzing and throbbing, and the room swirled dizzily above him, and his thoughts crashed haphazardly into one another making it impossible to focus. Why did his shoulder hurt so bad? Ever since he’d woken up, the pain had steadily increased until it was nearly a bone deep agony, and he tried to turn his heavy head to get a look at it. 

His head simply rolled to the side, but the movement caught Allison’s attention. She looked up sharply from her phone and gave him an exhausted smile.

“Five,” she whispered, but even her soft voice made his head pound. “How do you feel?”

“What happened?” Five asked. Well, he tried to ask anyway. What came out was a dejected croak. He cleared his throat, wincing, and tried again. “What happened?” He didn’t like the way his words slurred together, or how he barely had the strength to project his voice above a whisper. Luther was looking at him too, now.

“You don’t remember?” He asked.

Five was getting sick of the fuzziness plaguing his thoughts and the vertigo washing over him again and again. He didn’t like that he could barely keep his eye open, and that he felt too heavy to defend himself. “Am I high?”

That made them both smile, and Five felt a flash of irritation. They were  _ laughing _ at him. The anger washed away as quickly as it came, and he was left once again feeling calm and relaxed.  _ Too _ relaxed. Yeah, he was high.

“High as a kite. I can only imagine how jealous Klaus is,” Allison said. 

Five blinked, his eye half-lidded as he looked up at them. He was just so  _ exhausted. _ Allison squeezed his hand gently. 

“You should rest,” she said. “Don’t worry. Everything’s okay.”

Five doubted everything was okay, it never was with the Hargreeves, but his drug-addled mind didn’t need convincing and he slipped into a dreamless sleep. 

  
  


* * *

The weight in Five’s hand was gone when he next woke, which left him with an odd feeling of disappointment. His head and shoulder still pounded, and swallowing felt a bit like shoving a hose down his throat. So in short, he didn’t feel much better. There was something under his nose that he hadn’t noticed early. A nasal cannula, probably. He frowned and went to pull it off, but his arm flopped uselessly on his stomach. He was honestly surprised he even got it that far.

His eye fluttered open and he tried again, but a hand caught his arm and set it back down.

“Oh, no you don’t, short stack. I won’t have you dying on my watch.”

Five frowned and clumsily tried to smack away Klaus’s hand. He didn’t get very far. 

“Go away, Klaus,” he tried to say, but it sounded more like a moan. He blinked, trying to get his stupid eye to focus, but Klaus’s face remained a blurry blob hovering over him. 

“Rise and shine, sleepy head! Damn teenagers, always wasting the day away.”

“Not a teenager.” 

“Of course, of course. Damn senior citizens, always wasting the day away!”

Five let out a real moan this time and let his eye shut. It wasn’t doing it’s stupid job anyway.

“Aw, Five, I’m just joking. How do you feel, little bro?”

Five let the ‘little bro’ comment slide, only because commenting on it seemed like a waste of breath at this point.

“What happened?” He asked. Luther and Allison hadn’t answered him earlier. 

Klaus was quiet. Too quiet for Klaus. Five opened his eye and looked up at him. Concern was etched into his features.

“You don’t remember?”

Five shook his head, and then remembered why he wasn’t moving as pain crashed over him like a tidal wave.

“There was a shooter at your school. Two, actually. You...you got pretty beat up.”

Five remembered everything all at once. The shooters, the guy from his calculus class, getting shot, getting fucking strangled, Max, oh god,  _ Max _ , fuck fuck fuck-

In hindsight, trying to get up was not a very good idea in his state. He made it onto his elbow before a white hot pain arched across his shoulder and chest, tingling all the way down to his fingertips. He collapsed back onto the bed, squeezing his eyes shut as nausea rolled over him and Klaus carefully pressed him down. There was no need for that, though. Five wasn’t going to try getting up any time soon. 

“Aw, fuck, Five, are you okay?” 

“Trash,” Five wheezed. Thankfully Klaus understood and brought over the trash can just in time for Five to lean over and empty the contents of his stomach, which wasn’t much. Some bile came up, and then he was dry heaving over and over, the pain so intense he nearly blacked out. 

“Holy shit, Klaus, what happened?” someone yelled, but Five didn’t have the energy to open his eyes again. He was covered in a thin layer of sweat and fire seemed to burn every inch of his body.

“Uh, I told him what happened, because he asked, and he tried to get up and then he just started fucking throwing up, I didn’t do anything I swear-”

“Dammit, Klaus, why the fuck did you tell him? Obviously he was gonna freak out, and now look at him!”

“He asked! If I didn’t tell him I was afraid he was gonna, I don’t know, murder me in my sleep? It’s a valid concern!” 

There was a cool hand on Five’s forehead. He tried to block out all the yelling that was only making his headache worse. Maybe a migraine, at this point. The pain became nearly unbearable, before he felt something cool wash over his whole body. He instantly relaxed and felt his body go limp, and the voices went silent as he drifted back off. 

  
  


* * *

Something was tickling the back of his hand. 

Five opened his eyes and found himself looking up at a middle aged man wearing scrubs, who was fiddling with the IV. He saw that Five was awake and smiled down at him.

“Hi,” he said softly. “I’m your nurse. How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Five said automatically, but he realized it was true. The agony in his shoulder had been replaced with numbness and there was only a muted ache in his head. They must’ve upped the drugs. He wanted to ask the nurse if he knew anything about the shooting, if he knew how many people were killed, but his body didn’t seem very in touch with his mind at the moment and all he could do was stare. Fuck the stupid drugs, he’d rather be in pain but have full function of his mind. 

“I’m going to check your bandages, okay?” the nurse asked, and Five said something really intelligent like “Mmmmhmmmm.” 

The nurse pulled the flimsy hospital gown down over his shoulder and started picking at his bandages, which caused a few twinges of pain to break through the barrier of narcotics but it was nothing unbearable. 

As he worked, Five glanced to his side. Vanya and Diego sat next to him, both asleep. Vanya had her head on Diego’s shoulder and Diego’s head was hanging over the back of the chair, which could not have been comfortable. It was almost adorable, but Five was the deadliest assassin of time and did not use words such as ‘adorable.’

Well, most of the time, at least. The scene in front of him managed to wriggle it’s way into his cold, shriveled heart. 

The nurse stood up and smiled. “All set. If you need anything, just press this button here, okay?”

Five nodded and the nurse left, leaving Five alone with his  _ adorable _ siblings. The minutes ticked by in comfortable silence, but the unknowns of the shooting kept nagging at him until he couldn’t take it anymore. 

“Vanya,” he said. God, did he sound awful. She didn’t move. “Diego.” No luck. He reached out his stupid floppy arm and tried to smack them, but he was about six inches too short. “Hey. Wake up.” He tried to stretch out further but the bolt of pain in his shoulder as he shifted told him that was a pretty bad idea. Left with no other options, he slipped the pulse oximeter off his pointer finger and chucked it at Diego. Thankfully it got him right in the chest, and Diego sat up abruptly which woke Vanya up too. 

“Shit, Five? Are you okay?” Diego asked.

“Fine, calm down. Do you have my phone?” His eyelids were beginning to slip shut again, but he needed to know.

The question took his siblings by surprise. Five didn’t really use his phone ever. 

“How many people died?” he asked as Vanya handed over the device.

“Um, Five,” she started. “We can talk about this later, okay? I don’t think-”

“No,” Five snapped. He felt a bit bad at the hurt expression that crossed her face, but this was important. “I need to know.” 

“Six deaths and eight injured, including you,” Diego said.

Five turned his phone on and relief flooded his body when he saw a bunch of texts from Max. The lingering anxiety he’d been feeling since he first woke up vanished, leaving him even weaker than before. 

“Okay,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Okay.”

He opened his eyes when Diego put the pulse oximeter back on his finger, not even realizing he’d closed them. He should text Max back, he thought, but right now he was too tired. 

“Do you need anything?” Vanya asked. Five would kill for some water, actually, but he had a feeling he wouldn't be able to hold a cup himself and he did not need that embarrassment right now, so he shook his head. 

“How long have I been out?” he asked instead.

Diego leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the foot of Five’s bed. Five went to kick him but only managed to shift his foot about an inch. 

“About eight hours. You’ve been pretty in and out.”

“When can I leave?” 

Diego snorted. “Not anytime soon, if that’s your best kick.”

Five kicked him again and smiled smugly when Diego winced. 

“Brat,” he muttered.

“Whatever you say, Walmart Batman.”

Vanya jumped in and got the situation under control before Diego full on punched Five.

“He was making fun of me,” Diego said, crossing his arms and pouting.

“Diego, he’s literally just been shot.”

“Oh, so he gets a free pass to be a dick?”

“He’s always a dick.” 

“Fair point.” 

At some point, Five’s eyes drifted shut and he couldn’t open them again, but he was perfectly content to just lay there in the presence of his siblings. He’d never been a big talker. 

“Wait, shut up. Look.”

“Awww look how cute he is.”

“It’s hard to believe he’s fifty whatever when he looks like this.”

“We should draw a marker mustache on him.”

There was a thump, and then a yelp.

“What? It will make him look older. He should appreciate it.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Klaus.”

A door swung open. “And what exactly is wrong with spending time with me?”

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough. Who’s got the permanent markers?”

Five finally let himself drift off, dreaming of all the ways he could strangle Diego with an IV line if he did in fact give him a marker mustache.

  
  


* * *

Five’s phone was still in his hand the next time he woke up. His room was pretty packed, with everyone there except Vanya. He sat up slowly this time, not wanting a repeat of the Klaus incident. Four heads shot up and looked at him with panicked gazes.

“Uh, Five-”

“You should stay down-”

“-not a good idea-”

Five waved his hand at them and leaned against his pillows, upright. His head spun and the nausea was back, and god, did it hurt, but it was nothing he couldn’t handle. 

“I’m fine,” he said, completely out of breath. He turned on his phone and began to scroll through the texts from Max.

They started at 2:30, when the first shot had gone off, and ended at 8:00, all asking where the hell he was and if he was okay. 

“Who’re you texting, Fivey?” Klaus asked, trying to get a glimpse of the screen.

Five smacked him.

“Whoever it is, they probably won’t answer you at 2:00 in the morning,” Luther pointed out.

“Yes he will,” Five said. “He’s a teenager.” 

Sure enough, as soon as Five sent a text saying ‘I’m fine,’ the bubbles appeared at the bottom of the screen. 

“Wait, hold on a minute,” Diego said. “You’re texting a teenager. Is he like… your friend?”

Klaus raised his eyebrows. “Uh, no way. Have you met our oldest-youngest brother?” 

“Five,” Diego said, ignoring Klaus. “Is he your friend?”

Five shrugged, then winced. No shrugging for a while. “Something like that.” 

The door opened and Vanya came in with a tray full of coffees. 

“Vanya!” Klaus cried. “Five has a friend! I don’t know how much he’s paying them, but it must be a  _ lot. _ ”

“He probably shouldn’t be looking at that screen, with his concussion,” Vanya pointed out. 

Five frowned. They worried too much.

Klaus snatched the phone from his hand and shoved it in his pocket.

“Hey!” Five yelled, his voice rasping in his throat.

“ _ This _ teenager has just had his phone privileges revoked!” 

Five clenched his jaw and tried to even his breathing.  _ You love them _ , he told himself.  _ They’re your family. It's wrong to strangle your family.  _

“Give it back,” he said.

Vanya finished handing out the coffees and sat down. “I’m serious, Five. The doctor said you shouldn’t look at any screens for the next couple days.”

“I’m just telling him I’m not dead,” Five said. Everyone sobered up immediately. Okay, maybe bringing up his near death experience so soon wasn’t a great idea, but it got him his phone back. 

He put his phone done when he was finished texting Max, but the mood was still pretty low. 

“Look, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“Five,” Diego started, “I got a text from you saying there was a shooter in the school, and you stopped responding. Do you have any idea how freaked out I was?”

“I had it handled,” Five protested, which sounded weak even to him.

“Yeah. Getting strangled half to death, losing thirty five percent of your blood volume, and promptly passing out is having it  _ handled _ ,” Luther said.

Five stared at his lap as his cheeks heated up.

“We’re not mad,” Allison said. “Actually, we’re pretty impressed you even texted Diego. We were just worried.” 

His family never ceased to confuse him. If they weren’t mad, why the fuck were they talking down to him like he’d done something wrong? The beeping noise in the background began to pick up speed, and wasn’t  _ that _ embarrassing.

“Oh,” was all he managed. 

“Tell us about your friend,” Vanya suggested, changing the subject, and the heart monitor dropped back down. 

“I just have classes with him, and he’s not fucking annoying like you lot so his presence is bearable.”

“Five! You should invite him over for a playdate!” Klaus said, ignoring the jab.

“If you  _ ever  _ suggest I have a  _ playdate _ again Klaus, I will staple your hands to the wall, and I’m serious.” 

“I thought you were Five,” Klaus said with a smirk. 

Five would kill to be able to wind up and punch Klaus in his stupid nose, but unfortunately all he could do was sit there and glare. 

“Do we get to meet this friend?” Allison asked innocently.

“No. I’m not exposing him to you. You’d scare him away.”

“Five, if he’s managed to deal with your bullshit the past couple weeks, I bet he could put up with the rest of us,” Diego pointed out.

“God, you’re all such a pain,” Five said, even as a smile threatened to crack his stony exterior. 

  
  


* * *

Someone was knocking on the door. Five sat up and groggily swiped at his eyes. He was alone, but his siblings wouldn’t knock. They had no sense of personal space, and tended to just barge in uninvited. Five tensed.

“Come in,” he said warily.

The door opened and in came a tall, lanky kid.

“Max?”

“Hey, Five. Holy shit what happened?” 

“Um. I got shot.”

“No, I mean why do you look like you got in a fist fight?”

Five cringed. He’d told Max that he’d been shot, not that he’d taken on the shooter himself. 

“Oh. I, uh, ran into a door. In the bathroom.”

Max raised an eyebrow as he sat down. “Did the door also strangle you?” 

“It’s sort of a long story.” 

Max caught his drift and didn’t ask anymore questions. 

“Are you okay?” Five asked. As a seasoned assassin, he’d seen his fair share of violence, but Max was a fourteen-year-old kid who may or may not be traumatized. 

He shrugged. “I was pretty terrified. I mean, that’s something you only hear about on the news. My mom wants me to talk to someone about it, but I’m fine now.”

Five nodded. He wouldn’t be surprised if in a couple days Allison got on his ass about seeing a therapist. Again. It was a subject she’d been pushing on him for awhile now, and this just gave her even more leverage. 

Loud voices began to approach from the hallway, and then the door swung open as Klaus, Vanya and Luther barged in. Everyone froze when they saw Max. 

“Uh, Five?” Luther asked. “Who’s this?” 

Five sighed. “Guys, meet Max. Max, meet, uh...my siblings. Some of them, at least.”

“Some of them? How many siblings do you have?”

“Five,” Five muttered. 

“Oooo is this your friend? Max, how much does he pay you?” Klaus asked.

Five pulled off the pulse oximeter again and threw it. It bonked off of Klaus’s nose. 

“Hey!” 

Max didn’t seem to even acknowledge the question, he was too busy staring at Luther. Right, Five reminded himself. Normal people weren’t that enormous. 

Klaus threw the oximeter right back at Five and he swatted it away.

“Klaus!” Vanya scolded. “You can’t throw things at him! He’s been  _ shot! _ ”

Five got ready to throw his phone this time, but realized that might not be the best idea with Max in the room. 

“They’re a bunch of insufferable assholes,” he said. “Let me know if you want them to leave.” 

Max blinked and tore his gaze away from Luther’s shoulders, grinning.

“Nah, it’s cool. At least I know where the ‘insufferable asshole’ part comes from.”

Five rolled his eyes. “Oh my god.”

Klaus’s eyes lit up. “Hey Five? Yeah, he’s my friend now.” He turned to Max. “Honestly, how did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Speak to him without getting a pencil to the eyeball. That’s how it usually turns out.” 

Max laughed and Five leaned back against the pillows with a small smile. Yeah, his siblings were a bunch of insufferable assholes, but they were  _ his _ insufferable assholes, and he wouldn’t trade them for the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end! If you couldn't tell, I love Five and Klaus interactions with my entire soul. Thank you all so much for reading and for leaving such kind comments!

**Author's Note:**

> So that's chapter one!  
> Thank you all so much for reading! Side note, I thrive off of comments, whether they're constructive criticism or just stuff you liked or thought of as you read!  
> Five is one of my favorite characters of all time and I couldn't resist beating the shit out of him which will come in the next chapter, whoops. I'm planning on this being a three chapter fic but I haven't written anything besides this yet, so that may change.  
> Anyways, thanks again for reading and the next chapter should be up soon!


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